Category: Real Chicken Talk

I wrote the book on chicken. This isn’t that book. This is a website about chicken, which is kinda the same thing. So go on and learn some facts about my chickens. Like what goes into raising ‘em, where they’re from, what they eat, etc., etc., etc. You know, basic chicken stuff.

In true Colonel fashion, ensuring the highest-quality fried chicken starts with the chickens themselves, including how they’re raised and treated. This is why we’re committed to only sourcing our chickens from suppliers that adhere to established animal welfare practices.

You already know that KFC uses 100% real chicken and 0% mutant chickens, and that we’re committed to doing things the Hard Way. But our high standards for making Colonel-quality fried chicken also extend to how our chickens are raised and sourced. In fact, KFC’s parent company, Yum! Brands, established the Animal Welfare Advisory Council in 2003 to ensure that KFC chicken farms follow humane animal-handling practices.

So who are these suppliers? We source our chicken from 2,000 farms across the USA, many of which are family-owned small businesses. These KFC chicken farms are required to raise chickens humanely, in cage-free environments, based on the standards established with the Animal Welfare Advisory Council. The Council was also instrumental in developing a set of ethical sourcing principles that apply to all poultry, beef, and chicken suppliers in the US. These guiding principles focus on:

Animal treatment

Partnership with industry experts

Ongoing training and education

Performance quantification and supplier improvement

Communication with industry leaders

At KFC, we feel a quality end product begins with chickens that are treated well.

It’s late in the evening. With your stomach rumbling, you stop into the nearest KFC to get your chicken fix. You scan the menu, looking for the perfect crispy, crunchy bite that’ll satisfy your craving. You place your order and wah-wah. The restaurant is out of breast pieces. How can this be? KFC sells chicken. How can KFC run out of chicken?

With farm-fresh chicken this good, it’s hard to keep it in stock. So KFC ensures it doesn’t run out of chicken by scheduling deliveries of fresh chicken to each restaurant two to three times per week. Each piece is hand-breaded by a real person, in house—not in a factory miles away. Chicken is cooked in the Colonel’s patented pressure fryer and served up hot and juicy. This time-intensive process creates the best taste, perfect temperature, and absolute highest quality.

But once in a while, unexpected demand (such as a large same-day catering order) might result in chicken not being immediately available when you walk up to the counter. We take it as a compliment when our customers want this much chicken served up, although it could result in a temporary lack of product for other guests. As much as we hate the idea of delaying any customer’s experience of finger lickin’ goodness, it’s worth it to provide exceptional quality and freshness as we hand-prepare more.

And even though customer ordering patterns can be unpredictable, it would be rare for KFC to run out of chicken. Farm-fresh chicken is delivered multiple times a week to all KFC locations, and KFC cooks conduct product checks throughout the day to ensure there’s enough on hand. Using guest feedback surveys, each restaurant measures availability, with restaurant operators being accountable for the results. Weeks before you place your order, a computerized supply management system is already calculating how to keep a stream of fresh and crispy fried chicken flowing as smoothly as the Ohio River.

So if KFC runs out of chicken, it’s because our chicken is fresh and made to order. But with our high degree of oversight and care, KFC being short on freshly prepared chicken is about as rare as mashed potatoes without gravy.

Ever since humans have gazed at the stars, we have had one singular dream: to get a spicy chicken sandwich up there. Finally, KFC and World View are realizing that eternal human dream. KFC has the groundbreaking spicy chicken sandwich, the Zinger. World View has the groundbreaking technology, the Stratollite. Stratollites are amazing high-altitude balloons that can execute a variety of flight profiles, which gives them the ability to do all sorts of amazing things. Things, like, beyond putting spicy chicken into space. Read more about it below.

A world-shaking convergence of spaceflight and fried chicken history is upon us.

Ever since the beginning of history, humankind has looked skyward and dreamed of one day taking its place among the stars. The story of flight has taken us from Leonardo da Vinci’s workshop to the Wright brothers’ trials at Kitty Hawk, straight through to the dawn of the Space Age at Cape Canaveral. Those missions into space are the stuff of legends: Mercury. Gemini. Apollo. Skylab. The Space Shuttle. The International Space Station.

And now . . . Zinger 1.

KFC and World View are joining forces to embark on the greatest fried chicken adventure since Zinger 1 Mission Commander Colonel Harland Sanders founded KFC in 1930 and brought his Hard Way of making delicious fried chicken to the world.

KFC’s world-famous Zinger chicken sandwich will take flight aboard the longest controlled stratospheric balloon flight with a commercial payload in history. It will also be the first-ever multi-day mission of the World View Stratollite flight system.

“Folks who are coming along for the ride and are going to be watching it, they’re actually going to be seeing real aerospace engineering and, to some degree, spaceflight history in the making,” World View CEO Jane Poynter said.

Unlike other high-altitude balloons, Stratollites can execute an array of flight profiles—from circling the Earth to holding position over a specific location—and maintain a position over a desired area for days, weeks, and even months.

Nothing against rockets, but the Zinger launch will show the world there’s more than one way to get payloads to and from space. And what cargo is as precious as a hand-breaded, 100% chicken breast filet, served with crisp lettuce and the Colonel’s mayo on a toasted sesame-seed bun?

“We’re excited to be the ones pushing spicy, crispy chicken sandwich space travel forward,” said Kevin Hochman, KFC U.S. president. “But in all seriousness, we’re proud to support World View’s commitment to advancing space research and trust them to take our world-famous Zinger sandwich to space.”

Lifting the world’s most famous fried chicken sandwich into the stratosphere is a crowning feat in itself, but Stratollites have enormous as-yet unrealized potential. They could serve as stationary Wi-Fi hubs in remote or undeveloped areas that may not have existing internet access, or they could help monitor ongoing crisis situations from previously inaccessible vantage points. Future flights could be used for disaster preparedness and response—from weather predictions to monitoring disaster events to helping first responders with communications and surveying capabilities.

“The Stratollite was created to deliver meaningful access to space for all,” said Taber MacCallum, World View cofounder and chief technology officer. “This mission offers edge-of-space access to KFC, allowing them to embark upon a one-of-a-kind marketing experiment, while we get to pursue our maiden multi-day Stratollite shakedown cruise and open unprecedented access to the stratosphere. It’s a double win.”

With not even a sliver of exaggeration, I pronounce my Zinger chicken sandwich to be world famous. How could it not be? For years the Zinger has been celebrated all over the world, from India to France to other countries that won’t fit here in this small space. My freshly prepared chicken filet is double hand-breaded; fried to a golden-brown color; and served with lettuce and mayonnaise on a toasted bun. Delicious! And now it’s finally here in America! Wait a second. That’s where you are, isn’t it?

The world-famous Zinger is already on KFC menus in more than 120 countries. In fact, more Zingers are sold in the UK, India, and Australia than anywhere else in the world. And, boy, the Aussies are stoked about the KFC Zinger—to the tune of more than 22 million Zingers each year. That’s almost one spicy chicken sandwich for every person Down Under! Pretty amazing for a sandwich whose original version debuted at KFCs in Trinidad and Tobago in 1984.

Did we mention the Zinger is double-breaded by hand, freshly prepared, in-house? Not space-breaded on some faraway chicken planet or mind-breaded with some weird chicken telekinesis or robot-breaded on some assembly-line conveyor belt. Or any other cockamamie way a piece of chicken might be breaded.

No shortcuts, people. We’re not your run-of-the-mill “burger boys.” We’re obsessed with superior fried chicken. It’s why we can offer the ultimate fried chicken sandwich. It’s also why we took our time perfecting the Zinger before bringing it to America. We spent two years retraining our employees and upgrading our equipment in preparation for launching the Zinger in the Land of the Free on April 24.

Like all chicken at KFC, the Zinger sandwich stands out because we make it the Hard Way. Maybe we forgot to mention that every Zinger is freshly prepared, in-house, double-breaded by hand by trained cooks in every KFC kitchen. I guess we did say that already, but it’s a point worth driving home. And it’s why we’re sure you’ll go wild for the new spicy, crispy Zinger sandwich.

We believe in superior fried chicken, and that includes fried chicken sandwiches too.

Howdy, folks. At KFC, we want our food to reflect the values Colonel Sanders instilled in the first restaurant he opened 87 years ago: making quality fried chicken the Hard Way. In service to upholding this promise, we’ve vowed to only source chicken that is raised without antibiotics important to human medicine. Read more here to learn how we’re making this happen.

KFC menus in different countries offer a lot more than fried chicken. Like rice bowls in India and Singapore. Or the Chizza, a fried chicken pizza. Or the Colonel’s Christmas Burger. Or the Zinger sandwich. Rice bowls? Chicken pizza? What is going on in these countries? Delicious food, that’s what. Read more about it below.

From humble beginnings, Harland Sanders’ Original Recipe® fried chicken has become world famous. What started as one man selling fried chicken from a service station in Kentucky has grown into a global franchise with tens of thousands of restaurants. And perhaps much to the Colonel’s surprise, his face has become one of the most recognizable in the world.

One-quarter of KFC restaurants are located in the Unites States. The other 75% are located across the globe in over 100 countries and territories. Surely, this worldwide popularity must mean KFC restaurants have a formula: a tried-and-true menu consisting of only KFC classics.

But just as KFC expanded outside the United States, KFC’s menu expanded beyond the American version of fried chicken. KFC menus around the globe feature items unknown in the United States, as well as meals to meet the dietary restrictions and preferences of restaurant-goers in specific locales.

In countries as far flung as Australia, the UAE, and Canada, KFC customers can order soft-serve ice cream and enjoy blended, icy smoothie drinks called Krushers (flavors include Strawberry Lush, Kookies N Cream, and Chocopeanut Bolt). The KFC rice bowl is a staple on the KFC menu in India and Singapore, which features curry rice and spicy sambal.

In Japan, KFC is the place to be at Christmas. Although it’s not a national holiday there, many Japanese have adopted the custom of eating a Christmas chicken dinner, complete with cake and champagne. Anticipation of KFC’s Christmas menu is so great that preorders are taken in October, with the many who didn’t order ahead queuing up outside KFC restaurants on Christmas Eve.

KFC’s menu in the Middle East and North Africa is 100% halal, and KFC has tested sales of halal meat in many more outlets around the globe. In Israel, KFC replaced its milk-powder chicken coating with an identical kosher soy-powder coating, making all KFC restaurants in Israel kosher.

Special to the Philippines, the limited-time KFC Double Down Dog sandwich featured a hot dog covered in cheese and fitted into a bun-size piece of fried chicken. Now available in Singapore is the Chizza, a pizza with a fried chicken crust topped with tomato sauce, cheese, pepperoni, pineapple, and green peppers.

In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the newly-introduced-for-2016 Colonel’s Christmas Burger has an Original Recipe chicken breast, crispy hash brown, cheese, lettuce, cranberry sauce, and sage and onion stuffing mayonnaise on a sesame-seed bun.

One very popular item on KFC menus worldwide is the famous Zinger sandwich (aka the Zinger burger in a handful of countries). This spicy chicken sandwich has garnered a huge following all around the world. It’s never been available nationally in the United States, but the wait may soon be over—as the Zinger is being tested in the States! Americans may soon be able to experience the delicious sandwich and see for themselves what the hype is all about.